Added 2 more scans to the OP. On the 2nd page seems to be an interview with Ryoei Mikage, so this is developed by Image Epoch.

They had 3 projects announced, Ray, Salamander and DF (IIRC), this could be one of them. Maybe Salamander as that was supposed to be a 3D DS game. Last I heard they were only working on Wii and DS development, and they are also doing work for Square Enix (who, thanks to TWEWY, I'm ready to love again), so I'm kinda excited.

Nice, i'm loving the DS's new lease of life as a JRPG machine.
Gah, Summer 08! What's the likelihood of a Euro release this year?

I've just realised i've drank the kool-ade as i've bought the bloody Capcom/Squenix set! DQ Joker, Revenant Wings, Ring of Fates and The World Ends With You this month but that's only because 3 of the titles were a tenner on play.

Apparently, the premise of the game is that the protagonist, Kirie, gets caught up in a terrorist group who is aiming for world destruction. Hence the title.

Also worthy of note is that one of your party members is (can be?) a pirate teddy bear.

Lutz, a longtime veteran of the Shining Force series (Yoichi Shinosato) is on this.

The battle system stretches across both screens and is turn-based, with specials and such available for use by saving Battle Points which collect in battle. It seems there will be some Mario RPG/Shadow Hearts-style timing elements to increasing the potency of attacks as well. It's supposed to be a little bit more like a fighting game though.

You can see some art and screenshots if you can't read Japanese, but if you can...

holy smokes, this game has some INSANE characters in it. It's like Shadow Hearts, Disgaea and Grandia had a three way orgy and these were their love children. It starts with hints of creativity in the main character, who doesn't very typical:

Kirie Ilnus - Has a peaceful personality and doesn't really stand up for himself, but will spit out whatever he thinks honestly. Once he promises something, no matter what happens he will ride it out. Having spent all of his laugh without going outside Baruni, he doesn't know much about the world, but has a chance to learn about it now that he has been delivered a letter which tells he has been deducted into the Society for the Destruction of the World.

Yeah, a bit different from the norm, I'd say, doesn't sound like a headcase, a disaffected comedy figure or a spunky, hotheaded greenhorn hero. But what's this, what comes next? OH, this comes next:

Morte Ashura - daring, excessive, cheerful and not fretting the small stuff, to Morte the hedonist, the thing that is always the most fun is what wins out. If you were ask her why she is hellbent on destroying, she'd say, "Well, it just came to me one day and I thought hell ya, why not?"

0_o

There's more:

Agan Mardor - Sample dialogue: "What's the matter, what's with that face? Tell me what's wrong, ah, but I can't lead you money and I'm not going to introduce you to any girls, K?" Part of the Golden Lions and Morte's childhood friend. Straightforward right down to the heart. Well except for the part where because he's not experienced or worldly, he tries to hide it by showing a slightly cynical side. He mights look terribly unserious, but it's only half his real personality, the other half is camouflage. He looks after others a lot and considers himself guidance for the pure Kirie to teach him about sociality and friendship, but more in a big brother fashion.

That's good stuff, that is. It's a lot more unique a description than you usually see for characters in a RPG and it has a lot more of the waft of true characterization. Interesting.

Now it just gets insane though. Are you ready? I mean really, really, really ready? Because this is....

WORLD DESTRUCTION! ZOOOOOOOUNDS!

we're talking about!

Ria Dragnell - She may look like a 15-16 year old girl and her voice may sound like one but she's actually the last member of a dragon race, 300 years old and her words are anything but childish, but often holding the the stored knowledge of centuries. However, because she's a woman of few words, it's hard to know just what's on her mind and her actions take on a mysterious bent. She really loves fun things, but then gets tired of them quickly. As part of her mission as a dragon, she must be there at the beginning and the end of the world, and she takes her mission seriously. If you make her angry, she actually grows horns out of her head.

Naja Gref - Half wolf, half human, intellectual and determined to make good on his thoughts. No matter how much he fails, he's always thinks he's right. Obsessively loves his mother.

Aaaaaand the grand finale:

Toppi - A small yellow teddy bear who just happens to be a gruff, hard-boiled, hermit-like pirate bounty hunter who only relies on himself. He follows his intuition that following Kirie is the right thing to do, so he attaches himself to him. He has no interest in the Society of World Destruction or destroying the world, but rather in teaching the pure and unspoiled Kirie how to choose for himself and becoming something of a sensei role.

- The anime is called World Destruction ~ The 6 who destroy the world, it will debut on TV Tokyo on 7th July at 1:30 am
- It will be animated by Production IG's Studio 10, a new internal studio that previously worked on the Tsubasa Chronicle Tokyo Revelations OVA
- The anime cast list is as follows, Kyrie Ilnis: Mamoru Miyano, Molte Ashera: Maaya Sakamoto, Agan Mardol: Hiroyuki Yoshino, Li-ah Dragnell: Yu Kobayashi, Nadja Gref: Daisuke Ono, Toppi Topran: Toru Furuya

- The manga is called World Destruction ~ The two Angels, and will debut with chapter 0 in Dengeki Maou's September issue that streets on 26th July
- The manga will be drawn by Minoru Murao, who worked as animation character designer on both Last Exile and Submarine 707R.

- The game is called World Destruction ~ The Will that leads, and will be released on 18th Sept for 5980yen
- The game's story is the original base for all 3 projects, but each project will have an original spin on the story and they are not related to one another
- The game uses a 2gbit cart, and the extra space will be used to contain "a huge variety of rotatable 3D maps", "over 300 event scenes", "an abundance of sprite animation for the characters".
- The game cast list is as follows, Kyrie Ilnis: Mamoru Miyano, Molte Ashera: Maaya Sakamoto, Agan Mardol: Hiroyuki Yoshino, Li-ah Dragnell: Yui Ichikawa, Nadja Gref: Hiro Mizushima, Toppi Topran: Toru Furuya
- World Destruction was conceptualized as a return to the classic days of RPGs while using the newest technology and methods possible. This means well animated 2D sprites on detailed 3D backgrounds which are rotatable, and a fast and fun battle system with tons of attacks.

This is out in the US now, and therefore import-able, under the title "Sands of Destruction" (might be worth a mod amending the title to prevent a duplicate thread appearing?). Jolly nice it seems too, although I'm barely ten minutes in.

I seem to be the only person interested in this, but I'm a few hours in now so I'll post my thoughts in case it tickles anybody else's fancy.

It's fairly standard JRPG fare for the most part. The graphics are nice, but it's weird that it seems to zoom in on the character sprites quite often: it makes them look pixellated and ugly. The battle system hinges on very traditional, turn-based and randomly occurring battles, with the only slight nod to innovation being each character's ability to get more than one move into each turn. Sometimes they seem to occur with a frequency which would make Skies of Arcadia blush- and I'm talking about SoA on the Dreamcast, not the wussy Cube version!

The premise and setting (described above) are very strong, and it's what's kept me playing so far. I'm not far into it enough to comment on the plot, but even if it doesn't turn out great, a strong setting can make up for that imo.

I like the fact there are no save points, although I find it can be easy to forget to save, just because I'm so used to arbitrary save points in JRPGs. Doesn't take too long to get used to that though.

I'm finding the length of the cut-scenes with voiceovers a bit grating. You can't skip past them, not even a line of dialogue at a time, which is irritating as I'm a fast reader and don't appreciate having to wait for the talking to finish before I can get to the next line. The voice acting is of a much, much higher standard than I was expecting though, and if it wasn't for the whole unskippable thing, it wouldn't annoy me at all.

After spending this whole post making it sound awful, I feel kinda guilty: despite all the flaws I'm really enjoying it, more than I've enjoyed a JRPG in a long time. The setting and atmosphere are so strong that I keep wanting to go back to its world, and it's nice to play a DS game which such high production values.

I've been playing this too. Standard RPG sums it up so far. Horrendously frequent battles (in some sections but not others, weirdly - I have a feeling it might scale to the size of the area) and unskippable voice dialogue (of inconsistent quality) is making me think I might put it down in a few more hours' play.

It's also a little strange how everyone seems to be totally on board with destroying the world, from the very beginning. Like that's a perfectly normal thing to want to do. I'm curious to find out if this ever gets explored or if they just run with it right the way through.

I suppose you could say the characters are atypical (apart from the main character), but it doesn't totally come across. They're still essentially the spunky energetic girl, the demure but playful blonde girl, the roguish vagabond, the under-valued-enemy-disciple-turned-samaritan and the brooding veteran with a mysterious past. The pirate teddy bear is undoubtedly cool, though.